Thursday, December 28, 2017

Joel Hodgson at Wizard World Chicago 2014

Joel Hodgson is a writer, comedian and actor, probably best known for creating Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). He also starred in it as Joel Robinson.

I loved MTS3K. It was such a unique concept for a show. Hodgson (and his successors) are taken and held captive aboard a spaceship and forced to watch bad movies to see which will drive him insane. To fend off insanity and because misery loves company, he built some robots to join him in the movie watching. Of course, Hodgson and the bots make wisecracks and witty comments throughout.

At Wizard World a few years back, I had the pleasure of meeting Hodgson and the extra thrill of meeting Sir Thomas Serveaux (Tom Servo), one of the robots from MST3K.

Hodgson was one of the most under-the-radar guests there, but one of the most popular. MST3K has a loyal and large following.

Hodgson was really cool. He talked about his creation and the development of MST3K, leaving the show, the continued popularity and more. I asked him about a new version of the show and he said things were in the works, but it was too soon to really know if it would happen. I figured it was a standard answer. Lots of projects are visited, but don't actually happen. In this case, it did happen.